The email below was sent this afternoon:
This email is being sent to the Mayor, Council Members and the City Manager of Shawnee, KS.
Dear Mr. Mayor, Members of the Shawnee City Council and the City Manager:
Below are some expanded and some reiterated comments about the council committee meeting that was held on 10/19/10.
I felt the need to express my thoughts to all the members of the governing body, and the city manager. Since Tuesday’s meeting was running long, I kept my comments that night to a minimum.
A copy of this email will be posted on line at http://www.shawneeray.blogspot.com
Should anyone desire to respond I will give consideration to posting those responses.
Committee Structure:
The current committee structure is a borderline farce. As pointed out many items appear before each committee, that based on subject matter belong to the other committee. Many council members still attend the committee meetings that they do not serve on for educational and informational purposes. Then, during budget sessions council members usually also attend all committee meetings.
As stated at the meeting of 10/19 why not go to a "Committee of the Whole Structure"? It would simplify things immensely. It could be chaired by the council president, or as suggested, rotated among the council members. Over a two year period each council member could chair (and vice-chair) each committee for three months.
Meeting Minutes:
Primarily the publication of full meeting minutes is the best way to preserve transparency. It is very simple............it provides a contemporaneous record of who said what. Does the council want the community to know what goes on or not?
Information was given to the city manager about four companies that could possibly provide transcription services at a lower cost than what we are paying now. Modern technology being what it is there probably are more out there. I was totally offended that Dawn Kuhn said that full transcriptions were a luxury the city could not afford. The city cannot afford not to be transparent.
Excessive council travel is a luxury we can do without.
With regards to the audio CDs, it is felt that requiring the public to purchase them is ridiculous. They can be posted on line and people could download them as they see fit. Additionally, the printed minutes could be annotated every 10 pages or so with minute markings so that individuals could proceed to those areas of the audio.
There were comments about video feed of the meetings. Simultaneous internet transmission of the meetings might, at this time be a cost not acceptable. Creating a video, though, and posting it on line for download by the community could be a viable alternative. One of the council members, Jeff Vaught, seemed concerned about folks downloading a video and then posting “snippets” on the web. Is he concerned that a video would show the good, the bad and the ugly of council meetings? As for “snippets”, TV news stations do that all the time. They video tape a council meeting and may only show 30 seconds on the nightly news. Seems Mr. Vaught has not as yet fully grasped what it means to be a public official. This reminds me of his stated dislike for posting advance travel of council members on the web.
Public Comment at Meetings:
The only problem I see here is, as stated by some of the council members, is that there is not enough input from members of the community.
Mandatory time restraints should only be used when there are a large number of people who want to address the council on a particular subject, like the smoking ordinance. Requiring folks to sign in to speak ahead of time can make things run smoother, but should not be a restriction to someone desiring to speak when they had not originally planned on it. Practice has shown that in most cases the presiding official at most meetings has been able to control speaker times.
Actually, in many cases, some members of the council have themselves been overly verbose when discussing issues. Ms Kuhn sort of alluded to this at this meeting, and that she was culpable of that. Amen…………no joke. Maybe time restraints need to be applied to council members?
Dawn Kuhn seemed to be obsessed with the possibility that some people might use the city’s overhead projection system to display images that were “inappropriate” and the possibility of subjecting the city to a lawsuit. Is that possible? Could the city be sued for that? More importantly, what does she mean by “inappropriate”? That is a term that is subject to broad interpretation. So much so, that various courts have nullified laws that use that term (much of the original Internet Decency Act in the Clinton administration got tossed because of that). In the 3+ years that I have been attending meetings I personally don’t remember seeing anything displayed that could be interpreted as being “inappropriate” Having this woman talk about restrictions reminds me of a few years ago when she favored a local ordinance that would give the mayor the authority to declare emergencies and restrict/confiscate weapons. Actually, that would have I believe contradicted state law. It never flew.
Well, this has been one person’s thoughts
Sincerely,
Ray Erlichman
